Better Than
by Nagasasu
Summary: Tana discovers that some things are better in real life than her fantasies, including the handsome motorcyclist that drives by her house.  Modern Day AU.


Started: June 7, 2011  
>Completed: June 17, 2011<br>Posted: December 11, 2011

This was written for the kink meme prompt: AU, Biker!Cormag/rebellious rich girl!Tana. BEXP for Cormag looking all badass but secretly being a giant dork with women. See the end for more notes!

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><p>Because coffee makes her bounce off the walls – rather inconducive for her attention span – Tana's mornings are like clockwork, otherwise she's bound to forget something.<p>

(Imagine, going out without flossing and brushing! What if you didn't eat breakfast? They said it was the most important meal of the day, and if she didn't start the day out right, she'd fail the class, fail higher education, and then spend the rest of her life in _impotent exile_[she says this in her best Tim Curry voice which sounds much better in her head than real life] working at McDonald's!)

She wakes up, gets dressed (she lays her clothes on the trunk at the base of her canopied bed the night before), brushes her teeth, does her makeup (everything but the lips), eats breakfast (if she is really late, Vanessa the Undercover Maid will bring it by. Sometimes.), then does her lip gloss, and if she gets all this done in a timely manner, she'll wait on her porch (with huge-o handbag with all her books and pens and laptop).

If she times it right (which she almost always does barring illness, because she has this down to an art), as she waits for her chauffeur to finish his coffee and cheese danish, _he_'ll drive by.

_He_ being that yummilicious biker man who rides by in a blur of leather and rumbly vroom-vroom-ing that makes her Pour La Victoire heels rattle against the wooden planks. And because the universe loves her, there's a stop sign next to her house, so biker man has to stop, and she gets to drink him right up.

Things keep like this for a while. He drives by and she watches, clutching the straps of her handbag. She wonders what he must think of her; she's probably just another fixture to her house. Just like the white fence, and the wooden porch, there she'd be on swinging bench like always. (Although, she does like to imagine he's wildly in love with her: the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks and the beautiful rich girl he believes he'll never have. It's even better than the knight and princess daydreams she shares with Eirika.)

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><p>It is late in summer with heatwaves broken by rolling clouds and humid air telling her autumn's on its way and she shouldn't be wearing white anymore. Now that school is out, she doesn't have a reason to wait outside, so she doesn't see him nearly as much. But when she's about to go out, she does sit outside for a little.<p>

He comes, and something's off. There's more to the tight-set of his shoulders than the vibration of the motorcycle and the death-grip he has on the handle. Even odder, he's without a helmet. She's never seen him without one. While she does worry about the un-safetyness of it, she does relish in the knowledge that his hair's a real, honest, dirty blonde that looks like he rolled around in some ash and then some black paint. (If she continues with the bad boy, good girl fantasy, she wonders what kind of colored hair her kids will have; blonde or black or heaven forbid some sort of god-awful inbetween color that would be horrendous to match with orange.)

As he stops at the stop sign, his bike goes out with a great big puff of smoke from the exhaust pipe. He curses, and kicks the brake down with more force than she thinks necessary, and stalks to check the back of his motorcycle. After another good kick to the poor machine, he pulls it to the curbside and sits himself down, swearing all sorts of words her brother most certainly would call low-born and crass.

He sits there a bit too long, and she gets up, trying to get a better look. He lets out a sound that she's only heard a few times before. She recalls Innes making that sound when he got the news their mother had passed and he thought Tana wasn't around to hear. She leaves her handbag on her bench and crosses her lawn, her heels sinking.

"Excuse me," she says. (She hardly imagines that princesses ask princes, knights, or dragons questions like these.) "Do you want to use my cell to call some help?"

He turns his eyes on her, and that stare unnerves her. (She won't remember what color they were, the unnamed intensity, that focus, his eyes red with crying will be what she remembers.) He gives a great big sniff and then replies, "Yeah. Do you mind?"

She runs back to her purse, taking the paved path this time (running in heels is a lifeskill she's already learned, but running in heels in grass is something entirely else), fishes for her phone, and makes her way back.

He makes the call, and she takes in his sneakers, jeans, and leather jacket. He smells of dust, not at all like the lavender that permeates her house. His eyes are pretty even when red and his nose puffy. She settles herself next to him on the concrete curbside, smoothing her skirt as she does so. He looks like he could use some comfort; she lets her shoulder bump against his.

He mumbles thanks as he hands the phone back to her. They sit side by side until his ride comes, an older man with salt and pepper hair driving a pick-up truck. They load the bike into the back, and the man clasps her biker guy's shoulder, before they both climb in.

As they leave, Mr. Leather and Dust nods his head to her.

She does not see him the next few days, and not for the rest of the summer at all, for by then she's packed her boxes and moved into her dorm room.

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><p>Not seeing men made her a bit boy-crazy, which is the price (<em>hélas!<em>she thinks in the voice of her French teacher) of going to a women's college where you got in if you were a) not white (no way she's passing as anything but white), b) extremely talented at something (sadly, buying three pairs of designer shoes under $100 doesn't count), or c) rich enough to fork over the costly tuition without aid (which is what her father is). While she's there for an outstanding liberal arts education, not her MRS., she can't help but miss the virtues of the opposite sex (or gender. she's not sure which, since coming here has been one major turn-about and she's still getting her mind around that there's more to this women's college business than "ra-ra women's power!"). So with the lack of male populace, she's been thinking about Mr. Leather and Dust a lot more often.

So far, she's gone through imagining him to be the bastard son of a famous politician, descended from Princess Anastasia, a secret super-spy on a mission to break hearts, part of Lady Gaga's apostle-y motorcycle gang, and an extra from the Harry Potter movies (despite his lack of British accent). Now, she's decided to get her mind out of the clouds and gone back to the good ol' modern day, chivalrous, knight on motorcycle cruising for gorgeous women to save.

Her roommate, a very taciturn Jeet Kune Do blackbelt, mastermind, champion, whatever, calls this whole thing ridiculous, and says Tana should be focusing on her paper on the burqa ban in France. Tana is determined to get Marisa to say more than one sentence and to show off that killer body she's hiding under those hideous sweats and plaid shirts. Although, the last time she tried this was with a plaid-shirted upperclassman with sticky fingers who quite drily informed her that her country-bred girlfriend dug the plaid. If Marisa's protectiveness of the pre-med girl the next hall down means anything, Tana is hoping to put the two of them together. (Protectiveness means love, right? That's how it goes down in all the romance novels anyway...) Natasha, that's the pre-med girl's name! Natasha is much more receptive to Tana's daydreams and has even blushed at a few of them.

Anyway, due to Tana's college being in the middle of nowhere, she hasn't had the time to take the bus ride to civilization and the town where the men were all over the age of thirty. So when Eirika invites her to hang out with some of her (co-ed!) college friends, she jumps at the chance.

When she arrives at the cafe, she's rather surprised to find Eirika talking with a man who has to be a grad student. No way Tana could be the first one there, so the fact they're _alone_makes her matchmaking senses tingle. She's about to make her getaway but Eirika spots her. Tana is pleasantly surprised that when Eirika goes to meet her the man stands up.

"Well, Eirika, I'll see you next class," the mystery man says.

"Oh, yes. Thank you Professor, you've made Valega make much more sense now."

He levels her a look. "I look forward to reading your paper then." He places a five dollar bill on the table, and nods to Tana as he leaves.

"_Professor_?" Tana squeals, grabbing Eirika's arms. "I didn't peg you for the kind, but at least he's a gentlemen!"

Eirika blushes. "Not everything's like your romance novels, Tana. I was worried about the midterm, so I went to talk to Saleh. And he's a grad student, not a professor, teaching the class. The class calls him professor because he might as well be."

Eirika had had the foresight to catch-up with Eirika before her other friends arrived. Tana discovers Eirika likes Saleh's Philosophy Behind Women Warriors class enough to consider switching from Econ to the humanities department for more mythology, philosophy, and religion. In turn, Tana tells Eirika how she's enjoying the milk and cookies her dorm has every Friday night as a study break.

As all good things must come to an end, Tana's coffee and cake rendez-vous with Eirika ends when the rest of Eirika's friends arrive.

The red-head comes in first, nodding to Tana and taking a seat in the booth next to Eirika, without even a smile

Eirika looks around, hair falling across her chest. "Where's Cormag?"

Too-serious co-ed replies, "He was right behind me. He doesn't speed anymore like he used to. You know he doesn't anymore."

Eirika's face falls. "His brother? I heard about that."

"It was before you came, but it's… His brother and I served together, he was a good man, he didn't– he shouldn't have – " he falls silent.

Tana figures the red-head's been either discharged because he's gay, or he's here on the GI Bill. She discovers it's the latter, and he's a grad student.

When Eirika reaches over to grasp his hand, Tana raises her eyebrows. Curiouser and curiouser.

He pulls his hand away, Eirika looks away, Tana is displeased by all this, and Seth says, "There he is."

Coming right through the door is a familiar figure in leather with grease on his cheeks.

"Mr. Yummilicious!"

The red-head blinks owlishly at her, Eirika is trying not to laugh, and the man in question is slowly turning a bright red under his tan. (He can't be the bastard son of a politician; he'd know what to say.)

"...did I say that out loud?" Tana says.

"Yes," and to her surprise it's the red-head who replies, cracking a slight smile.

"Oh, well." She stands up, cranks her million-volt smile, and when he doesn't instantly swoon at her feet, asks, "Well, aren't you going to tell me your name, or do you like being Mr. Yummilicious?"

Mr. Yummilicious continues to turn red. (She rules out the possibility of him being a super-spy. Super spies are _way_more suave.)

He opens his mouth and all that comes out is, "I, errrr. Me llamo, errr, my name, um -" (She also rules out him being a foreign prince since he'd be able to keep his languages straight, but man did he sound sexy speaking Spanish.)

She holds out her hand. And puts as much chipperness as she can into her voice, "Tana, my name's Tana."

He takes it; he has a firm handshake. He shakes her hand a bit too long, and since she doesn't want to jerk her hand away, she gives her best impersonation of a bromance-y hug. He stiffens, and at last she backs away, about to call it quits.

Luckily Cormag provides her with hope. "I know. I mean, you come up when Seth's talking about Eirika and… But I didn't know you were the cute girl from home and -" He stops and turns redder. Tana never knew boys could blush down their necks, she thought that was a girl-only occurrence (not that she'd ever seen someone do it outside the romance novels).

Eirika intervenes then, saving Cormag from any more embarrassment. Tana smiles, genuinely this time, not having to force it at all, when the only seat left for him is next to her.

The rest of the time goes by quickly and in relative ease. Tana discovers Cormag's an engineering major, and has a part-time job at a motorcycle shop. Seth turns out to be a grad student writing his master's on courtly love (she really hadn't pegged him as the type to write about _that_but maybe he could be her latest daydream confidante).

In fact, the time goes by so quickly, Tana's missed the bus, and has to wait another hour alone. As they all begin to go their separate ways and Eirika, being soft-hearted as ever, inquires to make sure Tana has a ride. Tana, of course, does what any good friend would do when her friend finally has a chance to get a boyfriend without her twin around, and lies that the bus is coming in ten minutes. If she doesn't lie, Eirika will stay until the bus does come, and miss any alone time she might have with Seth (Prospective BF #2).

Thankfully, Eirika believes her and makes off alone somewhere with Seth. Tana waves goodbye to them, and that leaves her and Cormag.

"You know," he says, "that the bus isn't coming for another hour?"

She grins sheepishly. "Yeah."

He shuffles his feet, "Do you want a ride back?"

And so, after he gives her his helmet, he calls up a friend to bring him an extra helmet for himself. Said friend has rather short hair, a wicked scar, and is wearing a sleeveless plaid shirt that shows arms she's only ever seen on the hard-core rowing people. Tana decides the girl's obviously going to the wrong college and should be at her women's college, but is disappointed to discover her gay-dar is crap when her boyfriend appears with some wonky punk green hair. And then she gets on his motorcycle and rides home.

Cormag even drives her all the way to her dorm, instead of dropping her off at the entrance, a gesture that makes her feel all float-y.

When she gets off, and hands his helmet back to him, he pushes it back towards her.

"Um, I was wondering - did you want to go and grab another piece of cake sometime? You can return the uh -"

She beams, "I'll return the helmet to you then!"

"Yeah, then."

"Let me give you my number." She guesses by his blush he hadn't thought of that. She sets her purse on the ground, the helmet between her knees, to scrounge for her cell.

She takes too long though, because he pulls his phone out his back pocket before she finds hers. He calls her so she has his number, manages to get out a decent good-bye, and as he puts his helmet back on, he looks to her.

"Oh, and my name's Cormag."

It doesn't matter that she already figured that out after Eirika and Seth had called them that all throughout lunch. That he finally manages to finish his introduction from earlier in the cafe, even a bit late as it was, is oddly endearing. She gives him a hug, one that he returns tentatively this time, with his shoulder pressing against her chin and his stubble against her cheek.

And as she hold his helmet in her hands watching him ride off, the vibrations making her Badgley Mischka heels rattle, she sets aside all spy, bastard, knight, prince, magician, and vampire fantasies for one very real, tongue-tied, college student on a motorcycle.

She thinks this is better than any romance novel.

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><p>There are some cultural references here: "impotent exile" is from <em>Legend, <em>"curiouser and curiouser" is from _Alice in Wonderland_, and "million-volt smile" is from _Life-Size. _And some of this is loosely based on what I've heard about other women's colleges, like the milk and cookie night.

There are also cameos from Heather and Nephenee (FE 9/10), Vaida and Heath (FE 7), and Duessel (FE8). In case anyone's interested, Glen served in the military abroad with Seth and died there. After Glen's death, Cormag decides to go into law enforcement, despite being an engineering major. Eirika does switch majors, and ultimately writes her senior thesis on Nada Kuya.


End file.
